Happy Valentine's Day, Joe and Celeste!

Mon February 12, 2018 09:31pm

BY LOREEN BERLIN: Garden Grove residents Joe and Celeste Paul have been married for 27 years, but they've never stopped dating.

"When we first got married, we received advice to continue dating each other even though we were married," Joe said. "While our family was smaller and younger, date nights were easy and we went out pretty much every Friday night because my sister volunteered to babysit for us."

"We definitely notice the difference when we take time out each week for just us, and when we don’t take time out for us," Celeste said. "If we could give anyone a gem that they could use to keep the love in their marriage, it's that we recommend a date night once a week, even if it's just going out for ice cream or reading humorous greeting cards at Target."

Another key to a successful marriage is communicating.

"We're definitely not the perfect couple," Celeste said. "We have times where we disagree and have differing opinions on how to handle something, so resolving conflict is a work-in-progress for us but the important thing is that couples need to keep trying to work together and to communicate. Communication is paramount in any relationship, particularly in marriage."

Joe and Celeste met in an elevator while doing work for their church.

Joe was wearing a name tag that read, "Joe Paul."

"I thought to myself, Joe Paul what?" said Celeste. "We made small talk about where we were going and parted when we each reached our different floors.

A week later, there was a dance at their church.

They were both reticent because they'd recently had their hearts broken.

But when Joe looked across the room and saw Celeste, he told a friend, “I’m going to ask her" to dance.

"I still remember what she was wearing, which was an olive-green dress with white polka-dots," Joe said.

They danced a couple of dances, and that was that.

The next day, Celeste found a rose with a note on her car without a name and thought it was from another young man until Joe called later and told her it was from him. By the end of the telephone call, he had asked her out on their first date, which was to Souplantation in Garden Grove.

"We went for a lunch date and stayed until after dinner," she said. "A couple of times, the manager came to ask if we needed anything and he also gave us cookies. We felt so comfortable talking with each other that we spent time getting to know each other and during that date, I had the thought, 'This is the man I’m going to marry.'"

They met in August and dated through November of that year. Joe surprised Celeste by proposing to her before Thanksgiving. They were married the following March.

What attracted Joe to Celeste?

"As soon as I saw Celeste at the dance, I knew I had to dance with her and during our first date, I felt very comfortable talking with her," he said. "It felt natural and each time we spoke, the things I was looking for in a future spouse where checked off of my list."

What attracted Celeste to Joe?

"First of all, that Joe was tall, standing 6-feet-8. He was handsome and soft spoken and he was what I was looking for," she said. "Joe reminded me of a gentle giant and I couldn’t believe he was interested in me. He took time to listen and as we talked, I found out we had a lot in common and we shared similar goals about things we wanted in life."

Oh, and they both love language.

Joe is an English teacher at Cypress High School. He's the head coach for the girls’ and boys’ tennis teams. He continues to enjoy their children participate in swim, water polo, football, wrestling, track and field, karate, piano, soccer, choir, ASB, dance, tennis, and baseball.

Celeste is an English teacher at Louis Lake Intermediate School in Garden Grove.

What will they be doing to celebrate Valentine's?

Will Joe pull out all the stops?

That's between them.

Besides, when you're in love, you don't have to pull out all the stops all the time. You can enjoy a simple ice cream run, or laughing over greeting cards at Target.